‘Deltracron’ COVID-19 Found In U.S.: 5 Things To Know

ACROSS AMERICA — A new COVID-19 combination of the delta and omicron variants, informally called “deltacron,” is in the United States after being detected earlier this year in Europe, according to a new study.

Two unique cases of delta-omicron hybrids were found among 30,000 positive COVID-19 samples obtained from persons in the United States during sequencing at Helix, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-affiliated lab in San Mateo, California.

The study was published the day after the two-year anniversary of the pandemic, which has killed more than 6 million people — nearly 1 million of them in the United States — strangled world economies, set back academic achievement, and triggered seismic shifts in how people around the world work, play and go about their lives.

Here are five things to know:

1. Plenty Of Skepticism Early On

The first cases of deltracron were detected in France, the Netherlands and Denmark, and were reported in January.

At the time, Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician who works for the World Health Organization, was quick to dismiss the notion that omicron and delta created a “super variant.”

“This is likely a sequencing artifact (lab contamination of Omicron fragments in a Delta specimen),” she tweeted at the time. “Let’s not merge the names of infectious diseases and leave it to celebrity couples."

2. Two U.S. Cases Appear To Be Deltracron

Researchers found two infections involving different versions of deltacron, resulting from the combination of delta and omicron genetic material. Twenty other infections had both the delta and omicron variants, with one case having delta, omicron and deltacron.

3. Study Showing U.S. Cases Isn’t Peer-Reviewed

It was published to medRxiv, a research site co-founded by Yale University and The British Medical Journal. What that means is the research hasn’t been evaluated and should not be used to guide clinical practice.

4. Deltacron Is Unlikely To Get Greek Letter

Health experts are keeping an eye on the delta-omicron hybrid, but so far there’s no evidence it spreads as easily as either of the parent variants, William Lee, the chief science officer at Helix, told USA Today.

Lee said also unlikely to warrant its own Greek letter name under the WHO naming system used for key variants of the virus. The WHO adopted the system to make communication about variants easier and less confusing.

5. How Worried Should You Be?

Deltacron hasn’t changed in epidemiology or severity since it was detected, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an American infectious disease epidemiologist and the COVID-19 technical lead for the WHO, said in a March 9 news conference. Also, she noted, there have been “very low levels of this detection.”

"This is something that is to be expected, given the large amount of circulation, the intense amount of circulation we saw with both Omicron and Delta," she said. "This is what viruses do. They change over time."

An additional 12 cases have been found in Europe since the first three, but that’s still too few to know if deltacron infections are highly transmissible or cause severe disease, according Philippe Colson, the lead author of the report showing U.S. cases, Reuters reported.

The bottom line about the recombinant, Van Kerkhove said: "So, again, this pandemic is far from over. We cannot allow this virus to spread at such an intense level."